Republicans Keep Showing Us Who They Are

And we should believe them.

March 14, 2017

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Amid the mayhem of Trump’s first days in office, the Congressional Budget Office’s crushing report on the impact of the Republican health-care plan offers a moment of clarity. The Republican plan will deprive millions of health insurance, and raise the price for many more to pay for deep tax cuts for the rich. The math gives way to an obvious conclusion: This is the Republican mission.

Further proof will come on Thursday, when the administration is slated to present the outlines of its budget to the Congress. It will surely call for increased spending for the Pentagon and big tax cuts, all financed by deep cuts in social services for working and poor people.

The Pentagon—despite a cesspool of waste and fraud, and accounting books so convoluted that they still can’t be audited—will be showered with more money, with Trump planning a 54 percent increase.

Meanwhile, rural development, energy research, clean-water programs, preschool education, Pell Grants for college, affordable housing, Head Start—all are likely to be slashed. The State Department is slated for a cut of 37 percent; United Nations programs on health, development, peacekeeping, and more by 50 percent. The domestic discretionary budget—everything outside of Medicare and Social Security plus interest on national debt—will be cut to about half the ratio to GDP as seen under Ronald Reagan.

And as for the safety net, that’s certain to be targeted as well. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who would turn Medicaid into a block grant, as well as cap food stamps and other safety-net programs, has said, “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”

The problem is, this doesn’t work. Stripping people of health insurance puts lives at risk. Slashing domestic provision reduces opportunity, increases misery, and impoverishes our communities—from clean air and water to public schools to public parks and transportation. The rich get richer, but those that looked to Trump for help get shafted.

Trump has also launched the largest effort since Ronald Reagan to roll back regulations on corporations and privatize services. His first week featured an executive order instructing the Labor Department to block enforcement of the “fiduciary rule” on retirement advisers. The rule prohibits investment advisers from cheating their clients when recommending investments for retirement accounts, and Trump’s prompt action will ensure that they can continue to stiff their clients without fear. This will be followed by systematic efforts to weaken consumer, environmental, and worker protections. It isn’t an accident. It is what they do.

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The CBO said that under the Republican health-care plan, an estimated 14 million people will lose coverage in the first year, and as many as 24 million by 2026, leaving a stunning 52 million Americans uninsured. Older workers will face rising costs with lower subsidies. Millions would be tossed off of Medicaid. Repeal of the $600 billion in taxes for Medicaid expansion and subsidies for lower-wage workers under Obamacare would benefit the already wealthy. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the 400 richest Americans, whose average annual income is more than $300 million, would each get an average $7 million annual kickback from ending two ACA taxes. The 160 million households with income below $250,000 ($200,000 for an individual) would see no benefit.

Trump’s team dismissed the CBO conclusions, or at least tried to talk around them. Gary Cohn, the head of the National Economic Council and former president of Goldman Sachs, said, “If you want to have coverage—and we think that everyone should have coverage—we’re providing you access to coverage.” House Speaker Paul Ryan, a master at delivering mendacious message with choir-boy sincerity, said he can’t really estimate how many will lose health-care coverage: “I can’t answer that question,” he said. “It’s up to the people.”

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Republicans do not consider health care a human right. They consider it a product. Their law, in its majestic equality, gives all—the rich and the poor—the right to buy the health insurance they can afford. If you decide you can’t afford it, that’s your choice.

Trump may boast that Republicans are now the party of the “American worker.” Steve Bannon can trumpet his America First propaganda. Paul Ryan can recycle his Ayn Rand free-market fantasies. Kellyanne Conway can offer her risible defense of “alternative facts.” But these are simple distractions. Republicans now run Washington, and their mission is clear.

From whatever combination of ideology and interest, they will do their best to cut taxes on the wealthy, free the corporations from accountability, and cut the services and support for working and poor people. The American Health Care Act isn’t an aberration. It’s all part of the plan.

The irony is these tea party/freedom caucus members are being played. They somehow think they will be allowed to hold on to the the tiny power they have. Each of them has been bought for a couple $k. That's a Wal Mart price.

(0)(0)

Philip Johnstonsays:

March 16, 2017 at 1:01 pm

It's sad and disheartening to see this predictable and avoidable catastrophe unfold. If someone claims they did not see this coming, they either have not been paying attention or they have been living in denial about what the real Republican Party agenda (and the conservative movement) agenda is: Shrink government by defunding programs while starving it with tax cuts for the wealthy, thereby further solidifying the Oligarchy, and then drowning what is left in a bathtub. Put another way, it is enshrining selfish, self-interest as a virtue, and imposing it as public policy. These are the same hypocrites who posture with "Christian" values. Gag me with the Golden Rule already.

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Jim Dickinsonsays:

March 15, 2017 at 7:07 pm

In terms of income disparity we are already well on our way to becoming a third world country.

I have said for years that despite what they say, Republicans have only one agenda. That is to take as much wealth as possible from ordinary Americans and give it to the rich. It has been their only consistent policy for many, many years. And yet, ordinary Americans have given control of all of the government to the people who will abuse them.

The intelligence of the American people is obviously highly overrated.

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Chuck Wehnersays:

March 15, 2017 at 6:34 pm

I don't know where you get 52 million Americans without health insurance, if you add the 14 to the 24 million it only adds up to 38 million, and I don't think you are supposed to add the two together.

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Henry H Gaffney Jrsays:

March 15, 2017 at 4:06 pm

This is about the most comprehensive article on the immigration subject that I have seen -- well worth my saving. A slight correction: the defense budget is to be increased by 54 billion, not 54 percent. That increase is totally unjustified.

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Marjorie Wherleysays:

March 15, 2017 at 12:51 pm

NATION: who are these 400 richest Americans? Let's see the list. An investigative reporter should tell us about why they need another $7 million and how they will use it. PLEASE SHAME these people, by name!

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John Dehoffsays:

March 15, 2017 at 11:16 am

If this is allowed to stand, we will become a third world country. Resist.

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Adriana Avilasays:

March 15, 2017 at 8:06 am

“We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”
Let's just pretend for a minute that this is even close to the truth, that poor people are on Medicaid because they are lazy and like to be poor.

Ryan is actually stripping away the only thing that allows people who are NOT able-bodied from working. Many disabled people cannot work. Unless we start calling them "useless eaters" and sending them to warehouses, they deserve the same human and civil rights everyone else deserves. Even if they cannot directly contribute financially, they provide jobs for people who work with them.

But some disabled people work BECAUSE Medicaid pay for an attendant to get them out of bed, clean their tubes so they don't choke to death, make sure they eat. These disabled people sometimes work from home, they are journalists and writers, they are activists with jobs, they are film makers.

Medicaid also pays for transportation that some disabled people need to go to work, even when they don't need an attendant. Accessible transportation is one of the first items to be cut when states need to "save" money.

Ryan's statement is not only inhumane, it is false and it denies the contributions of many disabled people, who will be sent to nursing homes once their Medicaid does not cover the PCAs they need to live independently.

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Henry J Bennettsays:

March 15, 2017 at 4:25 pm

Adriana Avila - WELL SAID!

(1)(0)

Marjorie Wherleysays:

March 15, 2017 at 12:58 pm

And BTW, even a 4.7% unemployment rate means that millions cannot find work even when actively seeking. Is it so wrong that a 55 year old person who lost a job during the recession and can't get a job can get healthcare? I have friends and relatives, very educated and lifelong workers who are in that position. They are too poor to buy insurance--obviously. Do we owe them and others in a similar position nothing?? Cutting Medicaid will literally kill people like this.

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Carl Schwartzsays:

March 15, 2017 at 11:37 am

Paul Ryan always reminded me of the adorable boy who sang "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" in the film version of "Cabaret"--adorable until the camera pans back and shows the armband. His program turns our nation's name into something at least as bad as Germany in 1945, as it would hasten the death of four times the number of people murdered in the Final Solution.

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Walter Pewensays:

March 14, 2017 at 5:59 pm

"The domestic discretionary budget cut to about half the ratio to GDP under Ronald Reagan" is the telling statement. The huge contraction in federal workforce. The obscene reduction of top federal tax rates. Why aren't people coming out and saying it? This is economic collapse. There won't be any rebound like happened after Reagan's double dip recession. There will be so much money simply pulled out of the economy we will tank completely. Different than any other episode, but just as bad. One macro econ class for me in college. Don't need much more to see that this is an atomic bomb across the board for the U.S. economy. It makes Arthur Laffer look sane.

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Fred Carusosays:

March 14, 2017 at 9:26 pm

Maybe there is a rainbow at the end of this proverbial flood, that being former Republikkklans will stop their suspension of disbelief, about what they are actually doing.

There are many people living in the Bible belt and the boonies that think these are the same republicans that helped to pass the EPA and the civil rights act.